by Hugo Huesca
The sword was held by a golden hand resting on a crimson cushion. The blade hadn’t rusted, either—none of Saint Claire’s weapons had. Vaines freed it from the golden hand in a single movement and held it high so the light of the magical torches would shine on its edge.
It was a tool of war, unadorned, balanced. The edge shone so bright it was almost white, and the black metal of the blade was so dark it was almost a shadow. There were also faint glyph engravings running alongside its length. Its cross-guard had a plain coil on each side with a tiny emerald engraved at each end, as if the blade itself had its own Evil Eye. The grip was wrapped in green lizard skin and the pommel was shaped like a tiny red heart gripped by a brass claw.
That kind of weapon has to have a name, Ed thought.
“So he finished you after all,” Vaines told the blade, warmly. “And now we are reunited. Only, a few decades late.”
“What is its name, my Lady?” one of her minions asked.
Vaines ran a finger along the glyphs on the blade. “Eulogy,” she said.
She took out her old blade and its sheath and handed both to Lord Virion, who accepted them reverently while she fitted Eulogy’s scabbard on her waist.
Ryan turned to Ed with a bewildered look. “Did we really go through all of that—the traps, the monsters, the acid—just so she could pick up her lost toy?”
“Sure, that’s not hard to believe. What would you have done in her place?” Ed asked. He nodded toward Vaines’ team, who circled Virion and Vaines in awe, as if they were background characters in a painting. “They worship her anyway. For them, her new toy is a big deal. An important event the Bards will mention in their songs.”
“Fate has nothing to do with it,” Ryan said. “She is just power hungry.” He closed his hands into fists. “Damn it, I can’t do this any longer!”
Ed opened his mouth, and in that moment Virion’s Rogue stepped forward, arms spread wide, and hugged the Dungeon Lady.
“Greetings from Lord Molmeda,” the Rogue said, without using its mouth to speak. Miragefiend, Ed had time to think before the creature opened its four hands to reveal four fireball runes. “Fi—”
The world around Ed devolved into chaos.
Vaines cut the miragefiend’s throat before he had time to activate the runes. When she had gotten Eulogy out, Ed hadn’t even seen. At the same time the sword sliced open the creature’s throat, Ed activated a barrier around him and Ryan. His intention had been to protect himself from the explosion that never came; however, the barrier was peppered by a rain of tiny black projectiles like angry bees. Darts, he realized. Like the ones Vandran had used in Undercity.
More darts rained down on Vaines, Virion, and the minions. Ed grabbed Ryan by the cuff of his collar and dragged him away from the line of fire and toward the nearest pillar. As soon as he moved, the barrier went down. The enchantments of his armor surged with feedback as they deflected projectiles over and over. His cursewing engorged itself, apparently fearing no poison, and swatted away the incoming darts as if they were flies.
While Ed and Ryan ran, some of Vaines’ minions went down before the rest had time to cast magical shields around them and their Lady.
Ed threw Ryan toward the pillar and dashed after him. His nose was filled with the smell of ozone, which meant the darts had been enchanted. Probably summoned from a spell—Molmeda couldn’t have possibly had enough minions left to sustain that rate of fire. In any case, Ed’s enchantments would need time to recover.
He used his advanced reflexes to gain time to think. He had no idea where their attackers were, and he was of no mind to rush in blindly like he had done in Undercity. Not for Vaines. The prisoner pact, however, was of a different mind. He could feel it tugging at the back of his head, trying to compel him to charge into the line of fire and use his body to protect the Dungeon Lady.
Absolutely not, Ed thought, gritting his teeth as he fought the pact to a standstill. I’m more useful to her alive than dead.
“What the fu—” Ryan began, and then the vault started to dismantle.
ALERT. CRIMSON-THREAT INTRUDERS HAVE BEEN DETECTED IN CRITICAL LOCATIONS. EMERGENCY RELOCATION HAS BEEN ACTIVATED. ALL PERSONNEL PROCEED TO YOUR DESIGNATED ZONES AND WAIT FOR A SECURITY TEAM TO PROVIDE FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
“That can’t be good,” Ed said, though his voice was drowned out by the roar of mechanical activity all around him. The floor, ceiling, and walls broke out in sections in a seemingly random order. He raised his eyes and saw a brush-stroke of red sky looming above him with nothing in between them. A sudden gale almost dragged him out into the bowels of the shifting Standard Factory. He held on to the pillar for dear life with one hand and caught Ryan with the other when the man started to slip.
Vaines’ remaining ogre stumbled down the edge of the raised platform on which Vaines’ group now stood. Ed saw how the ogre disappeared into the whirring mechanisms of the Factory. He may have imagined the splash of crimson liquid that fountained upward a second later—he was too far away to tell.
“Portal us,” he told Ryan. “Portal us right now.”
“Can’t,” Ryan said desperately. “The circlet—”
They were on a platform of their own too, and it was spinning. Whatever precious artifacts and priceless weapons weren’t secured to the floor slid down and disappeared into nothingness below.
Something fell on their platform a few feet away from them. It had four arms and a bulbous head like a vegetable. It looked around, stunned, and the stalk above its head seemingly focused on Ed and Ryan. It dragged itself toward them.
“Hands up,” Ed minor ordered it, without even thinking about it. His Spirit overpowered the fiend’s before it had time to realize what was going on, and without something to grab on to, the creature disappeared from view as the platform’s spin launched it away.
“You killed it!” Ryan pointed out.
“Yes, that’s the point!”
“What if it wanted to help us?”
Ed took one bewildered look at Argent Planeshifter and realized Ryan was suffering from a nervous breakdown. “Close your eyes and focus on your breathing.”
While Ryan did just that, Ed took stock of the situation. There were far more platforms now than those the vault had been comprised of. The Standard Factory was rearranging itself, just like the voice had said. For an instant he could’ve sworn he saw an extremely confused hell chicken wheeze by on a platform of red grass, as well as one of Dolmanak’s Dungeon Lords hanging on to dear life to a mutagen valve.
The world spun madly. Objects smashed down all around the Dungeon Lord. The undead dragon the Factory rode on was either having a stroke or doing evasive maneuvers.
Ed closed his eyes and held his breath—as if that would help.
At some point, the undead dragon’s evasive maneuvers ended. The platforms slowed in their spin as they approached their new places according to the ineffable pattern of whatever mind governed the Standard Factory. Ed felt the change happen. His body was tense with adrenaline, his heartbeat so high it almost drowned out Ryan’s wailing.
The entire thing, since the start of the ambush, hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds. It sure as hell had felt like an eternity. Trembling from the adrenaline and the raw shock, Ed managed to stand up with his back against the pillar while he wondered just how the hell he was still alive.
It was strange, the sort of things the brain focused on during the aftermath of a traumatic event. Ed’s wondered what the hell the maintenance beetles would do to reflect the new layout of the Factory on the Museum’s floor plan.
The platforms were slowly coming back together to reform the Armory. The Dungeon Lord saw more red sky from the spaces between, this time all around them. It seemed as if the Factory had pushed their particular room as far away from the rest of the Factory as was possible without just dropping the thing altogether.
“You OK?” he asked Ryan.
The Planeshifter mumbled something incoherent. He se
emed unhurt.
A hundred feet away, in the center of the slowly reforming Armory, Vaines sprang to her feet. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she had lost her helmet at some point. She had her sword in one hand, and her body shimmered orange with all the buffs she had somehow managed to cast during the chaos. None of her minions were nearby. Although she seemed fine, Ed noted it was the most vulnerable she’d been since the start of the Endeavor.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one arriving at that conclusion.
There came a flash of flame right in front of the Dungeon Lady. Molmeda’s Devil Knight appeared out of nowhere, irises blazing Evil Eye green, wings spread in all their might, rippling red muscles throwing a terrible kick with all his weight behind. It had hooves instead of feet, and the kick caught Vaines square in the chest before she had time to react. Her feet left the ground.
Her enchantments and talents reacted in unison, and Ed had to close his eyes from the ensuing flare. When he opened them, the Dungeon Lady was scrambling back up after having gone through a massive glass display.
“VAINES!” Molmeda’s voice raged from the Devil Knight. “You’ll pay for this!” He said, aiming one massive hand her way. Ed barely had time to be confused by Molmeda’s choice of words—she’d pay for what? The ambush had been his—before the ensuing fireball surged forth from the Devil Knight’s finger, empowered by the fiend’s own set of talents. The superheated projectile exploded around Vaines with such violence that Ed felt the heat on his face despite the distance.
So that’s what the original fireball spell looks like, he thought vaguely as he dragged Ryan to his feet.
The wall of flames died down to reveal an enraged Vaines surrounded by an orange barrier. Some of the glyphs on her breastplate had burned off, Ed noticed, although she didn’t seem to care. She rushed at the Devil Knight as if the size difference between them was nothing. She yelled something, and both her sword and her armor became engulfed in orange flames.
Molmeda’s Devil Knight extended a hand and a huge broadsword appeared out of thin air. He barely had time to grip it before Vaines clashed against the fiend with the force of a hurricane. Magical surges thundered from the point where both blades touched, as the fighters’ enchantments tried to keep them in one piece after the explosive impact. Not a second later, both were swinging at each other while casting spell after spell in close range.
“Time to go,” Ed told Ryan after a wild beam passed a few inches above their heads and destroyed a chunk of ceiling. “This is far above our pay-grade.”
He turned just in time to see Jarlen’s mist come down their way from the corner she’d been hiding in during the Factory’s shift. The nightshade materialized right in front of Ed, so close he could smell the revolting contents of her mouth. She held a small dagger in her hand. Black veins pulsated weakly on her arm, although they were disappearing slowly even as Ed watched. His best guess was that she had stolen the dagger and triggered the Factory’s violent reaction. The veins were part of the curse, which, it seemed like, didn’t affect the undead.
“It took you long enough,” Ed told the vampire. Behind them, the fight between Vaines and Molmeda’s Devil Knight raged on.
Jarlen tossed the dagger away. “I needed a distraction.” She gave Ryan a look of contempt, then turned to Ed. “Stare into my eyes, my Lord Wraith. Do not resist, there’s no time to play around.” Purple swirls appeared in Ed’s field of vision as Jarlen’s hypnotic gaze snuck into his mind like a virus. “You are now under my command,” she said prettily, and he was. He would do anything the beautiful creature in front of him told him to. “I command you to act under your own volition.”
And just like that, Ed was back to his normal self.
“Clever,” he admitted.
“Like I told you before, I learned a thing or two about working around the Lordship’s pacts,” Jarlen said.
“Now I think I know how you got around most of our pact’s limitations,” Ed told her. “Let me guess, you hypnotized yourself?”
Jarlen smiled. “Let a woman keep some of her secrets.”
Ryan turned to each of them as if trying to follow a particularly complex tennis match. “What the hell?” he asked.
“She nullified my pact with Vaines,” Ed said as he dragged Ryan away from the fight.
The three of them ran with their heads down for the nearest exit. They had to jump from one platform to the next, which wasn’t easy; Vaines’ fight was delivering explosion after explosion, and the Armory shook with every impact.
“Where are the others?” Ed asked Jarlen.
“Steros and Xorander refused to act against Vaines. Mohnuran is a chamber away—or at least he was—summoning our friends from the Inquisition. We figured it was as good a time as any to do it. I’ve no idea if he managed to finish the circle in time, or where he is now.”
Ed raised an eyebrow. “Kes would’ve warned us by now.”
“They have problems of their own,” Jarlen said.
Before Ed had time to ask her meaning, they arrived at the nearest exit. The door was locked. Ed dropped his backpack and rummaged through it in a hurry, looking for a vial of acid or something to destroy the lock. He had no idea who would win between Vaines and the Devil Knight, and he was in no mood to find out.
“Wetlands,” Jarlen said from behind him. “Lord Wraith, we’ve got company.”
He turned in time to see a hand catch the edge of the platform they were on from below. Another hand joined the first, and then a man climbed up, panting, and scrambling to his feet in a very un-Lordly way. Virion’s gaze met Ed’s, then drifted to Ryan, Jarlen, and finally to the locked door.
“No, Wright,” Virion told Ed, grinning as he drew his blade. “You’ll stay right here. I should have dealt with you long ago. Do you have any last—”
Ed threw the vial of acid at Virion’s feet.
It was a testament to Vaines’ training that Lord Virion managed to react in time to cover his face with his arms, causing the acid to splash his forearms instead of his eyes. Trails of smoke came from all over his body wherever the drops of acid had fallen. Ed had no idea if the acid would do any real damage, taking into account Virion’s character sheet. Ed didn’t care.
As soon as Virion raised his arms, Ed had stepped in. “Power strike!” The Lord of the Haunt smashed his blade like a mace against the side of Virion’s helmet, trying to use concussive force to bypass Virion’s enchantments. It somewhat worked; there was a magical surge as the weapon’s magic fought against the armor, and Virion’s head jerked back, hard, as the Dungeon Lord stumbled away.
Without seemingly taking time to recover, Virion threw a lightning-fast slash at Ed’s neck. Ed barely managed to lean back. The tip of the blade smashed against the side of his helmet hard enough to make him see stars. He felt his Hogbus’ resilience talent used his Spirit to stop his jaw from dislocating. A spark of aftershock burned his left eye, though, a painful sting like he had been stabbed. He saw red from that eye as he retreated from Virion’s reach.
“I was asking,” Virion said, “if you had any last—” Jarlen materialized from mist right at his side and threw a stab straight at his leg with her rapier. Had Virion been a normal man, the blade would’ve pierced his femoral artery and he would’ve died in seconds. Instead, the tip of the blade was deflected by his enchantments and instead drew a painful, red scratch to the side of his leg. He grimaced and smashed Jarlen’s helm with his pommel. The hit rang like a bell. Virion then twisted his wrist to throw a horizontal slash at her neck. The steel found only air, though, as she turned to mist and retreated.
Then Ed was upon him again. A tongue of ghostly light came from Ed’s eye as spectral regeneration undid the damage there. “Eldritch edge, power strike!” Virion parried the slash, but then Ed tackled him, and both Dungeon Lords struggled in close combat, too near to bring their blades to bear.
“Damn you!” Virion exclaimed as he danced away from Ed just in time to dodge Jarlen’s new
lunge. He parried the vampire and used the impact to throw a slash at Ed. Ed ducked low and rushed him again—Virion was too good a swordsman to fight in a fair fight. “No last words, then!” He deflected Ed’s stab at his belly and aimed one hand at Ed’s chest. “Zamos’ wrath!”
Ed caught Virion’s wrist at the last instant and dragged the man’s arm toward him as Ed twisted into a judo-like maneuver that Monk Fastolf, the Haga’Anashi tutor, had taught him to use against spellcasters in close-quarter-combat. Virion’s spell went off safely past Ed from below his armpit. The resulting explosion happened somewhere too far behind him to be relevant.
Virion tried to kick Ed’s legs out under him, but Ed shifted his weight to the left and tangled his legs with the other Dungeon Lord’s, robbing him of purchase. Jarlen danced into view then, grinning madly, and her blade plunged in and out of Virion’s waist like a hawk hunting fish. When the tip came back up, it was red with blood. Virion screamed and tried to cast something, but Ed kicked at the back of his knee and smashed the pommel of his sword against Virion’s temple. Virion went down to one knee while trying to regain his stance.
At that moment Ed knew, as he and Jarlen wailed against Virion’s enchantments, that the fight was over. One by one, the glyphs in the armor of Vaines’ apprentice shorted out. More and more hits got through his guard. A fight to the death wasn’t about who was more skilled, but rather who held the advantage in the crucial moment and knew how to press it. And Ed had survived enough fights to know never to allow his opponent to regain control.
Although, sometimes, things got out of hand on their own.
Something huge flew right above their heads, covering them in its shadow. A red tail whipped about madly above Ed and grazed him. The impact threw him hard to the floor like a ragdoll. Ed looked up, too stunned for a second to do anything but lie on the ground, and saw the Devil Knight crash a few feet away, grappling furiously with Vaines, blood pouring out of both fighters from a myriad different wounds.